Thursday, 3 May 2012

There will be times when you suspect you have too many pronouns in your story. I, I, I or he, she,
he, she. And as soon as you become conscious of this problem you will start
seeing them everywhere and it will feel like a big problem.

First thing to realise
is that it’s not a big problem. Pronouns are part of writing stories, you’re
just being hyper-sensitive. A good way to calm yourself down is to pick up a
book by a good writer and look through it. You’ll find pronouns packed to the
rafters and pouring off the page. It’s normal.

However, there are times when you
genuinely need to reduce pronouns, and that’s what this post is going to be
about.

The two main issues are these:

1) In first person POV, even
though you will definitely end up with I, I, I all over the place — which is to
be expected — sometimes you will have a paragraph, maybe only a few lines long,
where the letter 'I' appears stacked up against itself so it becomes very
noticeable. And you may also find that as you look down the left hand side of
the page, every paragraph seems to begin with I. This needs to be dealt with
because it's distracting to the eye.

2) In all POVs, but particularly
in third person, there will be times when there are multiple characters in a
scene, two or more of whom will be of the same sex. When you start using
pronouns it won’t always be clear which person you’re referring to. And having
to keep using their names feels clunky.

To deal with the question of the
ubiquitous 'I' first, in order to reduce all the self reference in first person POV
takes a lot of tedious reworking of sentences. And it requires a good knowledge
of grammar and syntax. Wait, come back...

I held up my hand to ward off the photographers. I closed my eyes
against the blinding flashes of light. When I opened them again, I realised I
was trapped and I would have to go back the way I had come.

What you don’t want to do is
change the writing into passive language, or have body parts or inanimate
objects take on a life of their own.

So changes like ...realisation dawned on me.... or ....my eyes closed.... is just going to read
awkwardly. Unless the action is truly involuntary (e.g. My stomach churned at the sight of her mangled corpse...), this
kind of phrasing makes the story read passive and makes the characters feel
distant. Realisation moves like a separate entitiy. Eyes close independent of the person.

What you have to do is look at
the scene as a whole, not line-by-line, and shift things round.

As I said
above, pronouns don’t trouble readers, but what is distracting is when similar
words are all bunched up together. If you can fit in description, add small
details, give actions to other characters, all these things can create space
between words, which reduces the negative effects.

But to do this you need a
strong idea of the purpose and emotion of the scene, an understanding of what
is passive writing and what isn’t, and a willingness to rewrite in a fairly
drastic way.

The photographers rushed forward. I closed my eyes against the blinding
flashes of light. When I opened them again, photographers blocked every exit.
The only escape route was behind me, back to the car.

By shifting the emphasis onto
experience (what’s happening) rather than the narrator’s reactions, you can cut
down a lot of pronoun usage, and at the same time keep the reader within the character’s
experience. It’s very easy to lose the meaning of the scene in convoluted
syntax, so if you show it to a reader and they get confused, don't bother trying to explain it to them, you need to go back and clarify events on the page.

The second situation, where two or
more characters of the same sex are present, is a lot simpler to sort out.
Basically, clarity trumps brevity. You need to use character names, identifying
features and new paragraphs to help the reader follow what’s happening.

Just having it be technically
correct is not good enough. It’s always going to be easier for the writer to be
able to tell which pronoun refers to whom because they have an understanding of
the scene already. The reader doesn’t.

Even if you have to use the same names
again and again, that’s perfectly fine.
Readers want to know who’s doing what, they’ll go with the flow, so make
sure there’s a flow to go with.

It also helps if you structure
the scene so not everybody is involved simultaneously. You may think you can
have people do whatever they want whenever they want, as they do in real life,
but you can’t. Not if you want to keep the reader engaged. You have to choreograph it like a dance.

Breaking up a scene with
twelve characters in such a way that only two or three are active at any one
time, and then switching between groups, makes it much easier to follow. This
is a very technical thing, and the reason why you don’t often read a scene with
twelve characters.

It also helps to give people
things to do. It may sound a bit simplistic, but if one character is flipping
burgers and another is watering the flowerbed, it becomes much easier to use
their actions to help identify them. Sitting around a table all mirroring each
other’s actions very quickly becomes a mess. Often choosing the right setting
can make all the difference, and that choice is always up to you. A meeting can be held anywhere you damn well say.

And allow the focus to stay with
each character a little longer. Don’t jump between characters too quickly. Allowing
the reader to see what a character is doing helps them work out the geography
of a scene, who is where relative to each other.

In a fast paced scene, you can use actions to pinpoint characters.

Mike fell from the ledge. Dave leaned over and saw him hit the ground far below. He hit the ledge with his fists and cried out in despair.

Even though it could be debated, technically speaking, who hit the ledge with their fists, because I've placed people geographically it is much more likely Dave than Mike. And more importantly, it can be read at speed without losing the flow. And that's the most important part. There's no point being right if the reader has to go back and reread to check, they're no longer immersed in the story.

I realise this can be very
technical to sort out, and not everyone has the aptitude for it (not naturally
anyway). But if you are struggling with this problem, feel free to post a
sample in the comments and I’ll be happy to help if I can (and if I can’t I’m
sure some of the other writers who visit this blog will be able to).

33
comments:

Nice post! I write a lot of first person, and there are a lot of ...I...I'm always going back on proof reading and changing sentence structure to avoid it. I wonder though, if I need to look again. I still keep my action focused on the MC, for example:

"I held up my hand to ward off the photographers, closing my eyes against the blinding flashes of light. When I opened them again, I was trapped."

I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and having too many than risk having too few and no one knows what I'm talking about. Or one story I read recently kept referring to people like "the blond boy" or "the blond youth" which is just lame when you could easily say Joe or Bob or Sam or whoever.

@PT-I think any time you make it too noticeable you distract from the flow. It's like when characters find themselves in front of mirrors so the writer can describe what they look like, comes across as too deliberate.

Thanks for the post. I just started writing again today, and boy, was I aware of how many times I was using those pronouns. But I made myself ignore them and worry about it later in the rewrite. This made me feel better about doing that :)

Too many pronouns (or I statements) will keep me from finishing a novel. And I get tired of reading descriptions of persons quite easily. Maybe its just me, but I prefer a name instead of physical or relationship description.

I've heard the advice you give about reframing the sentences many ways, but your line about 'shifting the emphasis onto experience (what’s happening)' really nailed it for me. The narrator wouldn't experience life as 'this is what I'm seeing/feeling/thinking', and I knew that filter words should be removed, but your way of expressing it just cemented all these ideas in one neat and easy to remember phrase. Thanks!

Good tips. Even when there are only two people in a scene, one male and one female, it can get annoying if it is simply He and She. I want a name, a characteristic, something to sink my (eye)teeth into.

I have heard pronoun placement is particularly tricky in writing menage sex scenes (though I have yet to try 'em).

I think this is why I avoid writing in first person--all those I's! At one point I know I'll challenge myself but for now I feel very safe in the cocoon of my third person writing--not too much trouble with pronouns there:)Happy weekend!Nutschellwww.thewritingnut.com

I am reading a book right now that has lost my attention because it seems that every sentence begins with a 3rd person pronoun. It's driving me crazy so I had to stop. Putting it down was the only way to save my sanity.